Minutes before shooting and killing a 37-year-old man Saturday who turned out to be unarmed, police in Vineland, New Jersey, told him “no one has to die.”
Authorities released footage Thursday from the body-worn cameras of Vineland (NJ) police officers involved in the deadly episode. A few hours later, members of the man’s family and their supporters marched through the streets, calling for justice for Rashaun Washington.
Footage of the 28-minute showdown with police shows an unidentified Vineland officer pointing what appears to be a semiautomatic rifle at Washington and imploring him to relax.
Washington, whose comments are barely audible on the recording, is shirtless and wearing shorts and holding an object covered in a shirt. Authorities said he held 8-inch bladed garden shears.
“You’re going to have to blow my brains out,” Washington tells police several times. He mentions troubles with his girlfriend, who he said recently left him. “I don’t want to be here no more,” Washington tells police during the dramatic impasse.
According to the recording, Washington told officers he had an explosive device in his hands.
“I don’t want to put officers near him,” a Vineland police officer says in the footage. “We don’t know what it is. He says if he takes off the lid, it’ll explode, and it’ll take all of us out.”
The officer and Washington briefly discuss his two teenage children. “You’re their father. They need their father,” the officer says. “For them. For them, man. You’re not even in trouble, man.”
The whole time, Washington paces back and forth, holding the shirt-covered object that he refused to put down despite being ordered to do so.
“Listen, no one has to die. No one has to die. We can talk about this. We can figure this out,” an officer tells Washington.
“You got some stress, man. It is what it is,” the officer tells Washington. “We can work all that out.”
But then Washington moves slowly toward an armed officer, beginning to dash when he is shot three times. When he dropped to the ground, a patrol dog attacked him and an officer squirted him with pepper spray, the footage released Thursday shows. Authorities confirmed that the canine was released on Washington for 15 seconds after he was shot to “immobilize” him.